


heart of gold

by crocustongues



Series: copperwire veins and nerves of steel [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, M/M, lil bit of violence is AU typical violence a thing, martian politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-03
Updated: 2018-01-03
Packaged: 2019-02-27 09:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13244925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crocustongues/pseuds/crocustongues
Summary: In the last leg of an epic quest,  Ennoshita reflects, and begins to realise his time with Tanaka might have come to an end, and he must confront his feelings now.Before it's too late.Or, a story of an automaton and his captain who's entirely too worried about Life, the Universe, and Everything.





	heart of gold

**Author's Note:**

> hi friends this was written for ennotana zine (for only $0 a month you too can be a proud owner of [THE BEST ZINE EVER](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B0l4TEBHeCDeNjY1eUpCcHE3Rk0)) thank u and pls give all the love to the authors and artists they were lovely and i've died a thousand deaths going through it it was so great working with them all aaaaa

ミ☆

There is a certain serenity in this part of the block, expensive-looking verandas flooded with starlight and dust, while the partygoers make merry in the labyrinthine streets in the party district of Callisto. If you care to squint past the illuminated skies (fireworks, around this time of year, are commonplace), you would, perhaps, be able to spot two tiny figures sprinting along the rooftops.

Forgive them if they don’t look back and smile at you, instead, choosing to save their lives. The taller one, with smooth dark hair and a serious expression, holds a pistol, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. The bald one doesn’t carry arms, but his lingering smile is equally dangerous.

The vault cleanly over the balustrade and, very reminiscent of the circus performers at the other end of the block, smoothly land on the soft sands of the beaches that line the coasts of the main island. There is a rather conveniently placed coracle, tied to a single pier. The bald man looks at the serious one, perhaps asking for permission. They get on as soon as searchlights flood the beaches, and row away just in time.

A spaceship is parked in the freezing ether port between the main cities of the Callistan crust. By the light the Jovian system has to offer, the letters by its side read faintly: _Karasuno_. The two men row right up to the spaceship and climb aboard. An ugly orange parrot squawks in welcome.

“Captain and First Mate, welcome aboard.”

“You’re back!” A voice screams, shrill in the night air as various automata spring to life and pilot the steering wheel, Karasuno’s engines judder as cogs whirr into motion to lift the ship up and away from Callisto, and the Jovian system, back home to the Lunar Empire.

ミ★

Ennoshita Chikara, Captain of Karasuno and an admiral of the Trans-Lunar Space, is _worried._

“What did you do? How did it go? Shouyou and I did _really_ well. They didn’t even realise we were inside until we’d already made a run for it,” says Nishinoya, their ship alchemist and a first rate spy, as he mixes up in his cauldron whatever ingredients he’d just chucked in (Ennoshita pretended to not know what went in to brew Liquid Life, and overlooked the blood that went—directly and indirectly—into the making).

“We almost got caught,” he says softly, sitting down on the floor. Nishinoya, catching on to his forlorn expression, takes a seat next to him.

“You’re worried about Ryuu, aren’t you?”

Ennoshita’s silence is enough answer for him.

“Hey, I know it’s worrying because you’re Captain, but Ryuu’s strong. He’ll pull through. That’s why we’re doing this, right?”

Ennoshita nods, and offers a small smile as thanks.

“For what it’s worth, he’s worried about you too,” Nishinoya says, pulling on the absolute largest pair of goggles from the waistband of his shorts and tugs them on like he means _Business_ with a capital B.

ミ☆

Somewhere abovedecks, Tanaka winds the lanyards into neat little coils, listening to Shouyou’s excited chatter about their escape. The sky is awash with starlight and asteroid remains, fleeting reminders of the rocky intertidal pools back home on Mars. He smiles at Shouyou’s _gwaah!_ s and _hyuun!_ s and chucks a cloth at him to clean the crow figurehead. The ship’s previous captain had it remodelled, and it held a special place in their hearts.

Once Shouyou is busy, Tanaka sits down, a discreet hand over his heart, and listens for the telltale _tick-tock_. A clockwork heart for a watchmaker’s son. Tanaka could laugh at the irony if it didn’t spell almost certain death for him. The heist today had gained them the last ingredient for Liquid Life, an impossible feat by ordinary standards. But that’s just _it_. The _Karasuno_ ’s crew _wasn’t_ ordinary. 

They’d risked life and limb for him. How could he ever pay them back? Especially— _especially_ Captain Ennoshita. Chikara. He was _allowed_ to call him that now. After everything they’ve been through.

Shouyou breaks him free of his musings by pointing out it was almost past dinnertime. If it’s anything Shouyou lived for, it was food. And perhaps the exhaustive commentary on various Venusian sports on the radio at half-past noon every day while piloting the ship.

ミ★

The Karasuno is built strangely; while the deck is sprawled out wide, the cabins and everything belowdecks is crammed into little compartments. It looks like what one Futakuchi Kenji, a Xenological Diplomat of the Solar System, had once described as ‘an upside-down pyramid, though less mathematically important’. Sleeping spaces were shared with ideogram dictionaries and star maps, and the cramped dining area more often than not positively drowning in blueprints and newspapers in no less than fourteen languages.

Dinner is a lively, celebratory affair, and Tanaka can’t help but feel Ennoshita’s eyes on him, but every time he looks up, he can’t seem to catch his gaze. They’re talking about heading home and how best to explain their continued absence to Fleet Commander Ukai. There’s apprehension in their voices, but that’s only natural, for this is the last leg of a voyage that had been part of Tanaka’s dream for _years_. It’s surprisingly bittersweet, really, to imagine a scenario where he’s not aboard this ship, away on a new adventure, doling out justice, Robin Hood style or jeopardising themselves in search for a tiny vial of sunset beams.

Ennoshita volunteers to do the dishes, but he’s ushered away by the automata that govern the kitchen. Ennoshita’s almost afraid of the democracy they show within the confines of the tiniest, dirtiest kitchen in the galaxy.

The night is bright when he surfaces. The deck is empty, save for a solitary figure in the crow’s nest. Ennoshita sighs, tension rolling off his shoulders, tension he didn’t know he was holding. He climbs up slowly, not entirely sure of what he wants to accomplish.

“Hey,” Tanaka says, without looking back. 

“Hey. How’re you feeling?”

“Great. Except for the part where I die.”

Ennoshita rolls his eyes, the dark grey of sarcasm wasn’t a good colour on Tanaka. He was suited to the bold hues of honestly and passion and righteousness. 

“The potion will be ready in a week or so. How—“

Ennoshita breaks off, suddenly uncertain of the question he was about to ask or of the answer he’d receive if he did. How do you feel about that? What will you do if it works? 

Tanaka doesn’t answer immediately, instead choosing to ask, “do you remember when we first met?”

Ennoshita snorts. As if the meeting was anything less than memorable.

ミ☆

The sun shines down weakly on the western Martian harbour. Ennoshita, recently made captain of the Karasuno, was sent out on what the Fleet Commander called, rather charitably, reconnaissance. Ennoshita called it a waste of his time, but under his breath and to himself. Martian lands were still politically unstable grounds, especially after the civil unrest; anyone who dealt in animatronics was still in potential danger. Mars had been, by far, the largest exporter of automata, and Ennoshita was sure there was at least one Martian-made automaton aboard his ship.

He looks like any other porthand, dressed in indistinctly coloured breeches and stocky shoes, with an equally ugly cap to disguise the fact that he was watching his surrounding closely, and not, in fact, doing actual manual labour.

The ship closest to him, the _ISS Hephaestus_ , a luxury cruiser outbound to the Lesser Planetary System beyond Pluto, is of special importance today, surveillance-wise. It offered engineers and other clockworkers still on the planet a way out of the still prevalent civic anarchy. Many had lost everything, and most were on the cusp of the same. On board, as far as Ennoshita knew, were as many as two hundred broken families, all fleeing their homes in secret. His crew was asked to remain on guard and prevent any violence. Mars was an important geopolitical pawn in this part of the Solar System, and the Lunar Empire would do anything to keep its alliance.

A young man, brown-haired and loudly standing up for himself, catches Ennoshita’s attention as soon as the roughhousing begins. Almost instantaneously, Ennoshita can tell this was some sort of foul play, but true to military instruction and training, he is forced to step in. As quietly as he can, he radios Nishinoya for backup, just in time to hear abuses being hurled into the air.

The insults in the spectrum of ‘he’s a monster!’ and ‘his people are an abomination!’ are screamed by porthands around the _ISS Hephaestus_. The young man just keeps his hands folded, as if curled in on himself, an angry, defiant scowl etched into his face, jaw set and stormy-eyed. Before Ennoshita can ask questions, or even move, the man is on the floor with gears flying everywhere and oil spilt on the red rocks around him.

A _revelation_ —

But he’s not like any mechatron Ennoshita’s seen before, and on instinct, he lends a helping hand to the man, who only looks back distrustfully. Ennoshita spots the harbour constabulary and, not for the first time since he’s been made captain, Ennoshita finds himself panicking. He doesn’t want to start off on the wrong foot on a new planet and end up in a stinky little cell with a handful of his crew. So he does what any quick-thinking, strategic, experienced captain would do in his stead—he grabs the automaton’s hand and _runs_.

“Nishinoya—the bombs, everyone regroup to the ship _immediately_ ,” he radios, and hopefully Nishinoya’d get the message. His ‘homemade’ grenades—which he’d lovingly named ‘rolling thunders’ when they, whether in theory or practice, neither rolled, nor thundered—made for fantastic diversions. As if on cue, white smoke engulfs the better half of his view and he ploughs on, on towards Coronation Rock where the _Karasuno_ is docked, hidden from plain sight. 

Shouyou is already there, equally sweaty and out of breath, preparing to launch into the ether when Nishinoya practically rolls his way in, landing on his back, yelling, “go, go, _go!_ ” and go they do, away from the angry Martian port.

“Who are you?” The man asks, trying to catch his breath, “thanks for the save, but I could’ve managed it myself.”

“Sure, pal,” Ennoshita says, trying not to sound too winded, “why were they after you?”

The man pauses for a long moment before speaking again.

“See, I’m an automaton. Well, not really, I’m also human, because of cognisance, but also not made of flesh and bones, just—“ he breaks off, grimacing and clearly in pain, and Ennoshita whacks himself upside the head mentally for not remembering this man’s injury. Mechatron or not, he refuses to have injuries aboard his ship.

“Wait a bit, I’ve got someone to help you. Do you trust me?” Ennoshita asks, already signalling to Nishinoya.

“Do I trust you?” The man repeats, clearly incredulous. “Yeah, man, I mean after you saved my life and sort-of kidnapped me and now we’re warping at thousands of miles to who-knows-where, I don’t think I’ve got a choice.” The man wheezes before doubling up in pain.

Ennoshita rolls his eyes and turns to Nishinoya, who’s been watching the exchange closely and with a delighted smile.

“You’re gonna let me experiment on you, right?”

And the man looks understandably disturbed and Ennoshita chides Nishinoya for being so forthright.

“Copperwire veins…” Ennoshita murmurs to himself, as Nishinoya tends to frayed wiring and dented metal, mulling over a fragment of an idiom he remembers.

Nishinoya does a splendid job of patching the man up, who introduces himself as ‘the one and only Tanaka Ryuunosuke, vigilante extraordinaire’ and by the time he’s stopped bleeding lubricant on Ennoshita’s regolith encrusted floors, Tanaka and Nishinoya chat like they’ve been friends for years instead of mere minutes.

ミ★

“Copperwire veins,” Ennoshita says now, smiling faintly at the memory.

“And nerves of steel,” Tanaka grins back, pangs of nostalgia bloom within at the sound of his people’s saying, his hand curling around Ennoshita’s own, warm despite the cold of the vast and empty landscape they’re traversing, but then, Tanaka’s always been warm, both inside and out.

They stand like that for a few minutes, watching ether swirl by, each lost in thoughts of their own. 

Ennoshita knows Tanaka will return to his home planet, to try and bring peace to his brethren. Freedom comes at a price, as does mortality, and Ennoshita is convinced no one knows it better than Tanaka. His people would rejoice, the face of their rebellion back in their midst.

Ennoshita himself is apprehensive of the fate that awaits his crew back in the Trans-Lunar Space barracks. He’d only dared to imagine the kind of things Daichi had written to him about sometimes, but an automaton boy—a construction worthy of Hephaestus himself, all for the fabled and elusive Liquid Life had not been part of childhood daydreams. He hadn’t wanted to get involved with Martian politics, but civic spiderthreads ran deep, well into the heart of the very Empire he had vowed to serve for the rest of his life. He only hopes Tanaka can bring their labours to fruition. He’d give anything—everything—to see Tanaka’s smile again.

Tanaka, for his part, is wondering much the same, weather he’s cut out to bear the burden of bringing justice to his people, but, more importantly, whether he deserves the rewards of Liquid Life. The legend tells of bravery and fortune and immortality. He knows his faith in himself is bolstered with Ennoshita by his side.

Hands tighten in each other’s grasp.

Hearts may be clockwork or flesh-blood. Ennoshita _knows_ Tanaka’s is pure gold.

**Author's Note:**

> anyway so coronation rock is a real ass rock on mars and it's where the curiosity rover landed i am a space gay
> 
> also, the title is a reference to the hitchhiker's galaxy (how could i not nod to what's arguably the best worldbuilding sci-fi literature to ever exist?); the heart of gold is the spaceship aka a machine the way tanaka is
> 
> or not.


End file.
